My main plan for today was to get away from the city and explore the Oregon wilderness a bit, and for that I selected a half-day tour of the Columbia River Gorge.
We set off on a cool, gray morning to go to a hotel downtown, where our tour guide picked us up first on his route to gather six more guests in a comfortable van. He was an extremely energetic, outgoing guy (I guess you’d have to be, with that job) but non-intrusive, which I appreciated. He told us all sorts of stories and recommendations about Portland, some of which I was proud of already knowing from my multiple guidebooks, others I was happy to learn for the first time!
After a short drive on the highway we found ourselves already seemingly deep in nature, with lush forests on either side of the road, until one side opened up to reveal a vast view of the river gorge below us. Our first goal was to visit the Crown Vista House, although as with many such monuments, what you really want to see is the view of the landmark rather than the landmark itself. Sure enough, our tour included a stop before getting to the house, to appreciate the stunning cliff it’s perched on, which looks like one giant solid rock.
At this point, it was cloudy but not yet raining, although we knew that the forecast predicted rain around one o’clock in the afternoon. We pressed on to the Crown Vista House, which is in fact simply an old rest stop for early cars (so, a glorified bathroom) and isn’t all that impressive up close, despite its art deco stylings. I think the Space Needle in Seattle is like this: you want to see the needle, not get on it!
After admiring the scenery, we proceeded to visit a series of waterfalls all within close proximity of each other. The guide told us that there are 77 permanent waterfalls around the area, but the number doubles in the spring when rainfall and thawing increase the flow of water down the mountains. All of the waterfalls we saw today were therefore at its lowest flow -it is difficult to imagine how wild they must be when they are roaring with twice the power!
Our first waterfall was past a short walk under an atmospheric stone bridge. This one is called Latourell Falls, although I was shocked and appalled to learn that although the name is French here it’s actually pronounced… “lateral”. I am adding it to my list of French words with deranged American pronunciations, next to the town of Beaufort (“byoo-fort”) which you can read about on this very blog. Anyway, its most noteworthy element is the basalt stone it falls from, covered with lime-green lichen on the top, fractured into hexagonal rods on the bottom.
The next one was Shepher’d Dell, a waterfall that zigzags its way down the mountain next to a different stone bridge, less spectacular but beautiful in the way it slides along the scenery.
Next, we went to the minuscule town of Bridal Veil, ostensibly because our guide wanted to show us the second smallest post office in the United States (a tiny wooden shack with an even tinier office inside), although I suspect the real reason was that he wanted to show his pal the postmaster us -apparently the man is planning to retire to Spain and he was delighted to be able to chat with two real life Spaniards. He was so eager to shoot the breeze that the guide had to come rescue us and I didn’t even get to take a picture of the post office!!
(Short intermission to confess: this was all just this morning and I’m already mixing up the names of all the waterfalls. I’m looking them up as I type to make sure I pair the right names with the right pictures.)
Our third waterfall was the biggest and most famous of them all, Multnomah Falls. There’s a double parking lot, a building with a ghastly tourist gift shop, a coffee stand, and of course a lot more people than the other waterfalls which we had mostly to ourselves. The hype is understandable, though: this is an impressive sight because of the height of the waterfall (three times as tall as Latourell) but also because of the bridge that cuts the image in the middle.
The view from the bottom is incredible, because you get to see the two jumps the water makes and the bridge in the middle, but you can also walk up to the bridge to get an uninterrupted view of the big jump. By this point it was already raining, although not unpleasantly so. I was happy to have brought my tiny Japanese umbrella, that’s for sure!
Also, this was a nice callback from a painting we saw yesterday at Pittock Mansion. I made sure to take a photo as I knew I would be seeing the real thing today:
Honestly I thought this was the end of our tour, but turns out there was one more waterfall to visit: Horsetail Fall, so called because the water hits the rock before jumping off. This one is more discreet, but still beautiful.
The way back to Portland felt pretty long, mostly because we were behind schedule (we were supposed to return by two and it was closer to three when we finally arrived) but also because the rain grew heavier by the minute. Both factors threw a wrench in my carefully arranged schedule: my plan had been to go to Mob Hill to eat at Bamboo Sushi and then while away the afternoon visiting the shops and walking down the street, but that didn’t feel terribly appealing under the pouring rain.
Instead, we decided to leave Nob Hill for tomorrow and stay downtown to see the Portland Art Museum, which was my plan for tomorrow morning but much better suited for the rain. We started by having a late lunch at the downtown Bamboo Sushi -I’d been meaning to come back ever since my first visit- where I treated myself to a delicious roll of modern sushi with spicy tuna, apple, cucumber, basil and mustard seeds. I am normally a sushi purist wary of any sacrilegious inventions, but this place offers variations that feel creative yet elegant. And it is all sustainable!
Next we practically sprinted to the Art Museum, only to discover, to my dismay, that they are doing construction and only have two exhibits available: one is just pictures of Paul McCartney, and the other sounds like a small selection of items from their permanent collection, for which they still charge full admission price. This really disappointed me because I was looking forward to showing my mom the excellent Center for Native American Art, something that we can’t find in European museums. I was also annoyed I hadn’t seen anything mentioning the closures on the museum’s website, even though I’d checked multiple times, but now I see there’s a small popup (looks like the one for cookie policy) that mentions a reduced exhibit…
At this point it was still raining and too late to consider going to a different district, but I was determined to get some retribution for the afternoon and took another rainy walk to Blue Star Donuts. The store I first went to closed, but they apparently opened new ones up, and this one wasn’t terribly convenient but I couldn’t let any more days in Portland go by without donuts! We got two kinds: Blueberry Bourbon Basil (I could really taste the basil, which was not unpleasant -the other two not so much) and Chocolate Bergamot Old-Fashioned (delicious, drier and crunchier than a traditional donut’s dough). That’s another Portland staple checked off the list!
That was it for the day, unless you want to hear about the extremely long, extremely crowded bus ride back to the apartment (buses here stop pretty much at every block, which can make rides feel even longer). I have to do some planning for tomorrow, after the shakeup to my itinerary, but at least it’s not supposed to rain anymore so we should be able to go outside!
This Is A Lake 